In the Shadow of a Wish, page 17
“It reads, ‘End the spell. One to start. Seven to complete. No magic to restart. Open doors, realities transcend. Freedom and Power. A Feast to End.’” Poe sank down to the chair, and the book burned away, bright gold between her palms. “Nix, I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t want to hear it. Leave me,” he said and swiped his hand. She collapsed into the stardust and was gone.
“Nix,” Auri said.
He looked at her, his darkness receding into him. “Lifetimes,” he said, his eyes rimmed red. “For what?” He swung his arms, and everything to his left was picked up and tossed across the room, smashing against the wall. Auri jumped.
Nix stalked from the room, and when the door slammed behind him, the room rearranged back into its normal presentation, everything in its place and put together as if nothing had happened at all.
She didn’t follow him, not that she knew where he’d disappear to. He wouldn’t let her find him if he didn’t want her to. Instead, she turned about the room and wondered if she looked hard enough, the chairs, the rugs, the fireplace, the windows framing the black of nothing would disappear and cast her into an enchanted darkness. She walked across the room and stood at one of those windows where nothing existed beyond.
She didn’t know how to fix the spell. What she did know, however, was she had the power to end it. She had the power to save Nix. But that meant she needed to start making wishes. Each wish would get her closer to returning to her family, back to her life, and Nix back to his realm. While she might be angry at Nix for manipulating her, making her wishes was the only way forward, and she finally knew exactly what her first wish would be.
“I know what I want my first wish to be,” Auri told Nix after dinner, sometime later. She wasn’t sure on the timing of things anymore and had begun just existing in the moment as the spell seemed to dictate.
Nix was sitting in his usual chair in front of the giant fireplace, watching the fire with one of those amber drinks hanging precariously in his grip. He lifted the glass to his lips and took a sip. After he’d swallowed it, he nodded. “Okay.”
Their rift obviously still loomed large between them like the wall of snow that had hemmed her into the lonely meadow. At dinner he’d been a quiet, brooding god offering her hums, harrumphs, nods, or silence. She wasn’t sure how to breach the rift, though every part of her missed the ease with which they’d once existed at the onset of this circumstance. There was an ache in her heart when they were apart, but since their fight and Poe’s visit, she knew making a wish seemed the best way to move forward. She knew she didn’t want either of them to exist in the stagnancy of this enchantment, knowing she could help to change it. That would be like choosing to remain stuck in the horrible purgatory of the marriage market. So, she’d worked through the words to settle on a wish she thought would serve her hopes.
“I thought you might be happy that I’d settled on something, given how often you’ve asked about it.”
His eyes flashed to her, then away. This was how things had become between them: tense and terse. Though she couldn’t be sure, it seemed only days ago he’d admitted to wanting to have sex with her whenever they were in a room together, and now this was his response. The indifference stung, but Auri didn’t take the time to examine why.
Instead, she sighed and sat across from him in the chair she’d come to think of as hers.
“What is it?”
She wasn’t sure if he was commenting on the sigh or the wish, so she decided it was the wish. Besides, she didn’t want to comment on her sigh. “I have thought a lot about this wish and the wording because you said it matters.”
“It does.” His gaze was lost somewhere in the liquid of the drink, the look on his face dark like everything about him. From the dark clothing to his dark eyes to his dark hair and now the somber carriage of his mouth in conjunction to the loss of the camaraderie between them, his brooding was exactly how she might have once imagined the god of night and darkness.
Auri smoothed the front of her dress. “At first, it may seem like it doesn’t directly benefit me, but I assure you it does.”
He looked up at that with a frown. “That doesn’t sound promising.”
“It fits within the parameters.”
“Alright.” His gaze returned to the fire.
“I’ve told you about the marriage laws and how I have to go to the marketplace to be discovered by a prospective husband.” Auri plucked at a loose thread in the pocket of her dress, then reached into the pocket to grab the key.
Nix straightened in his chair, taking a sip of his drink, then looking at her over the rim of the glass.
She held up the key; the firelight flickered against the shining metal. Then she put it back into her pocket and looked at Nix, who was watching her. “I’ve been thinking about how unfair it is. The whole system is geared to favor a man. The man chooses a wife, and though there’s a provision that a woman must accept the man’s offer, a woman without means—like my sisters and me—are stuck. A man can even marry multiple women, and a woman has no say in that. My sisters and I faced that, well–” she paused and gripped her hands together– “the last one–” She stopped, not really wanting to think about Crossbie and what had happened, what could have happened, now understanding more clearly what occurred between men and women and what Crossbie’s intentions had been. She shuddered.
“What about the last one?”
Her gaze danced to Nix to find him studying her, his elbows on his knees, his drink forgotten in his hand with his attention fully on her.
She swallowed, abhorring the need to relive it, but felt it was only fair to explain so he understood. Needing to move, she stood and paced around the room as she told him about her experience at the marriage marketplace before finding the key. When she got to Crossbie grabbing her, replaying what he’d said, Nix stood up and walked to the fireplace, his back to her.
“One of those men. He was in the conjuring?” Nix asked.
“Yes. Crossbie. The first man.”
Nix’s eyes caught her and held. “He put his hands on you.”
She shuddered, recalling it, but didn’t respond to what he’d said unsure if it was a statement or a question. “So, you see,” Auri concluded, “our prospects are grim and gaunt. A woman has no rights over her–” Auri stopped rambling, her bravery seeming to break apart in her throat.
“Over what?” Nix asked. He looked over his shoulder at her, dark emotions riding his brow.
She swallowed to clear her throat, reassembled her bravery, and said, “Over her own body. Before coming here, before meeting you, before reading The Romance of Lady Miriam, which I would never have had access to read before coming here, I knew very little. I would have been imprisoned or put to death for trying to learn.”
Nix returned to his chair, where he sat and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees once again, one of his hands loosely holding the drink between them.
“Women have no choices.” She paused and took a deep breath. “I have no choice.”
He sat back as if she’d pushed him with her words, and she wasn’t sure if it was because of their fight or something else, but he looked down at his drink, and damn her if she didn’t notice the thickness of his lashes fanned out over his cheeks. When he looked up, he asked, “What is the wish?”
She recited the words in her head, the ones she’d decided on after determining the right way to word the wish for what she truly wanted. “I wish for women of my homeland, which includes me, to have the freedom to choose what they want for their bodies in all ways.”
He stood and walked a few steps away from her. Knowing him, he was trying to find the loopholes in her wording before granting the wish, and she knew he would help her. That is all he’d ever done. Then he sighed. “Auri… the consequence–” He looked pained. “Are you sure about this? Please be very sure.”
“I’m sure.”
“Your wish doesn’t exactly change the Marriage Law,” he added.
She stopped near where Nix stood at the hearth. “I tried to come up with a wish that the law be changed, but it doesn’t change the fundamental problem.”
“Which is?”
“Women having rights over their person, to choose their life. It comes down to controlling their own bodies. If a woman can control that, she could choose not to marry, right? She could choose who to marry? If she wanted to have children—or not. She could choose to–”
“–to what?” His dark gaze landed on her.
“Who she wants to have sexual relations with and when.” She forced herself not to look at Nix; she realized as she said it that she wanted to have sexual relations with him, and she was sure it would be written on her face. When she did finally chance a glance at him, he was staring at the fire.
“I can’t guarantee that the Marriage Law will be impacted by the wish. What happens if the law is changed to control women in some other way?”
Her own earlier realization hit her then. Nix had only ever tried to help her, protect her. Maybe he’d orchestrated the dream, but he’d also been honest. He may have manipulated the situation, but he hadn’t taken away her choices inside of it. He had presented her with fair options—the fear had only come because of her own insertions in the conjuring. Perhaps he had been underhanded, which she didn’t condone, but Nix had never once been malicious.
“I understand that, and I still think that having a say over one’s own body would be a start.”
She watched him as he pondered, his broad back moving with each of his breaths. She wished she had the bravery to move closer, to reach out and place her palm along his shoulder blade, to take some of his strength, to find security in that connection.
But she didn’t.
Eventually, he sighed and asked, “Is this your final wording?” He looked over his shoulder at her. “Remember, it isn’t just the wish, Auri. There’s the price for it, and this one will be very high. I can imagine what it could be. When a key keeper has wished for health, they have spent the obligation sick and broken. You understand?”
“Right, the obligation.” Her heart pounded in her chest considering it, but this wish felt right in the very center of her being, so she nodded. “Yes. This is the final wording for my wish.”
He looked at her, then back at the fire. He was silent for an extended duration, as if he didn’t want to grant the wish, then closed his eyes. “Granted.” He looked into his glass as if he could find the answer he was looking for in the liquid, then took a sip.
“That’s it?”
He turned away from the fire and walked back across the room to the drink decanters, not that he’d ever needed one. She recognized that he was moving because he needed something to do with his energy. He filled his cup. “Did you expect something else?”
“How do I know what happened?” She returned to her chair.
“You won’t until you leave the spell.”
“My wish could have made things worse?” Her hand flew up to her mouth as her breath came in a gasp, imagining the worst for her sisters.
“Auri–”
There was a loud, dull sound, then Nix was in front of her, taking a hold of her arms to draw her out of the chair and into his embrace. It was the first time he’d touched her since stalking her in the library and wrapping them in his cocoon of darkness. His hands on her back, the front of him pressed against hers, burned her skin through her dress.
“I can’t see a problem with your wording other than what I pointed out.”
Auri nodded. “I know.”
“You do?”
She lifted her head, leaned back, and met his gaze. “I do.” She tried to fill those two words with everything she knew to be true, hoping he would comprehend all of what she’d come to understand about him over their time together. She’d only known his kindness. She’d known his respect, his generosity, and his passion.
He searched her face, reading the way she looked at him. His gaze dropped to her mouth, his arms tightening around her, and she thought perhaps he would break open the wall between them by finally kissing her. But then he stepped back, dropping his hands back to his sides.
“Are you ready for the price of your wish?” he asked, turning away. He retrieved his drink and downed it in one go.
“What is it?”
“The rules of the consequence are always tied to your wish.” His eyes moved to hers, and the look in them begged her to understand.
“I know. The spell.”
He nodded, looked at his drink, and watched it refill. “The joy of the wish is usually obliterated by the price of the obligation to pay for it.”
“Okay,” she said, repeating her wish in her head. The freedom to choose. Her eyes collided with his.
“The price for your wish, Auri,” he said, “is the loss of the freewill over your body in all ways.”
She stepped back and bumped against the chair, her knees buckling as she sat with a thump. The very thing she feared was being exacted, but she’d had a sense that would be the case. And though she’d chosen to walk this path, it didn’t lessen the fear she carried to achieve it.
He sat down in the chair across from her. “Prior obligations haven’t lasted more than a day and night, though I can’t promise it won’t feel like a lifetime. It’s the spell. If I had the power to take it away, I would,” he said, and the sound of his voice made her think he was trying to beg her to believe him.
She nodded, but tears filled the breach and threatened to flood. Somehow, she managed to say, “When will this obligation occur?”
“For the others, within that first day of making the wish and it being granted.”
She swallowed and nodded her understanding again, unable to say anything, afraid the tears would fall. She didn’t want them to. She wanted to be brave, or at least appear to be. Nix had lived in this reality for a lifetime, trapped by no choice of his own, his freedom tied to the spell. The least she could do was face it with bravery.
“Auri.” He reached for her as if he knew.
She moved away from him, reminding herself that the price was temporary, but her wish wasn’t. She couldn’t look at him and shook her head, turning to leave the room before he could say anything else. Before he might offer her comfort, because she knew she’d lose control of her emotions if he did.
As she hurried through the maze to her quarters, she was beginning to understand why he’d been so adamant about protecting her from the spell, about what was to come. When he’d asked: why would anyone want to choose to make a sacrifice for the villain in their experiences?
She was about to experience everything she was fighting against—with Nix as her villain.
Nix watched Auri go, tears shining in her silver eyes, and suppressed the urge to go after her. He wanted to wrap her up in his arms and apologize profusely for being the bringer of her impending misery. But he didn’t. He looked at the glass of whiskey and wished he could disappear inside of it rather than hurt her.
But he knew the spell would ensure he would.
That realization shredded the golden spark around his heart into filigree, then opened fissures he wanted to fill with her but couldn’t.
He’d dropped his guard in the library after the conjuring he’d manipulated, unable to forgo the shock of what she’d been able to do. When she’d taken it over—changed the circumstances so that he was at her will instead of the other way around—he knew there was more to Auri than just a peasant girl wearing a spelled ribbon on her wrist.
Caught off-guard, curious, and fighting the attraction he felt for her, he’d succumbed to his own wants and admitted his thoughts to her. He wanted her in a primal way as if she were the very threads that made him. The heat in his heart expanded every time he was with her, and as much as he tried to rid himself of it, he couldn’t.
She hadn’t shunned him for his admission.
Rather, her anger was rooted in her perception of what it meant to be free. Now, though, the spell was going to rip any semblance of choice she might have thought she had here.
The story of the farmer putting his hands on her, attempting to take her against her will, made him want to obliterate the man. Beyond the confines of the spell, he would. He would visit the bastard and eviscerate him with his darkness, but here Nix was useless. He was an impotent puppet, beholden to the spell that had him trapped.
He shattered the glass in his hand. The shards rained onto the floor, a bright sound as they landed on the hearth. The liquid drained around his hand until what was once broken was but a suggestion, a new glass in his hand, filled with liquid, undisturbed.
He was the bringer of her terror, of her pain, of what she was wishing away. She’d already been hurt in her life, and here he was going to perpetuate hurt on her again. How could he follow her and offer her comfort when he would become her jailer? She’d made a wish he couldn’t predict, but he could imagine it.
Layered in the pain of realizing his own powerlessness was the acknowledgement that she was something altogether different. Different in her approach to wishes. Different in her approach to life. Different in her approach to him. Somehow different in her abilities within the rules of this spell. Nix had to acknowledge that these differences bolstered hope inside him. Hope that maybe the outcome could be different too. Because of her.
He was hesitant however, wary of allowing the hope. He would still take the position of villain, no matter her wish. Though her wish might be unlike anything any key keeper had wished for, the obligation of the loss of her choice was exactly what she fought. And at his hand. The thought brought apprehension to his already dark heart.
With a shout, Nix threw the glass into the fireplace, where it shattered, the fire flaming bright, then settling back into its usual rhythm. A new glass appeared in his hand, full, and he drank it down.
It was the nature of this horrible spell, where he could manipulate it as if there were no consequences to the pleasures it could provide them as inhabitants. It was an awful irony that he couldn’t lie, but that was all the spell did was lie. He could conjure dreams that lied to the senses, but he couldn’t affect what fucking mattered. He was powerless to it, to stop it, to control it. And what good was he if he couldn’t protect her?
